Murrayfield mismatch lets down the World Cup

The Scots conceded the game to New Zealand yesterday before it had even begun. Frank Hadden selected a weakened team to face the tournament favourites, hoping to save his best players for the match with Italy next weekend.

To be fair, the second string played reasonably well, although they couldn’t muster a point against the All Blacks who scored 40.

In my opinion, they would have been better served taking them on with all guns blazing. The Scots have a good lineout, with Alistair Hogg and Jason White providing additional options to the second rows, and they should have targeted this New Zealand weakness. As it happened, the All Blacks played pretty badly, and so with home advantage you never know, they could have caused a big upset.

The pack would have been battle-hardened from the confrontation, and with a good performance, confidence would have been boosted.

At the very least, they would have avoided irritating the crowd – this fixture was the main attraction at Murrayfield, and those that bought tickets were let down. Hadden’s tactics violated the spirit of the World Cup and of the sport itself by saying, we don’t think we’re going to win, therefore we’re not going to try.

6 thoughts on “Murrayfield mismatch lets down the World Cup”

I have to disagree. Let’s be fair – are you saying the Scots 1st team would really stand a chance of getting anywhere close to beating the Blacks?

Hadden has played it correctly I believe; this way he has his full quota of uninjured players, they are able to train right through the week with no lay-off for recovery, and they also are left unscarred by what could well have been an equal pasting, with the possible deflationary effect on their confidence before the crucial Italy game.

Slightly disappointing to see a 2nd team, yes. But this is the age of professional rugby. As demonstrated by Wasps in the new format to the closing stages of the Premiership, a few tactics and sensible team and match selection are the keys to progressing as far as possible.

Like James, I can see both sides, and only time will tell when they play Italy. I’m always a big advocate of continuity of selection though and hope they don’t blow it – I generally like to see the Jocks do well, even though I know it’ll never be reciprocated!

Talking of “seeing both sides” – the most annoying thing of all watching on TV had to be the kit colour clashes – navy and grey against black and grey, both with dark shorts. Fantastic!

Granted Hadden was to a certain extent damned if he did and damned if he didn’t, but to me this capitulation before the whistle was blown is insulting and goes against the entire ethos of the world cup.

Professional rugby be damned, this is not a club (aka a business, ergo run for profit) operating a rotation policy, this is a national team. It dishonours the jersey to give sympathy caps because you’re worried about hurting your ‘stars’. JW and Barkley were both broken on the training paddock!

You had it right Jim, the Scots missed an opportunity, and let down their home fans. Brian Moore had a fair point in the DT today though, by denying the Kiwis a true test before the QF showdown the Jocks may have done their opponents a favour. Very poor show.

Something needs to be done about the jersey situation. The team color’s worn by Scotland were far too close to the silver worn by New Zealand, even the ref was having a hard time telling the teams apart.